In recent years, biotechnology has experienced an unprecedented revolution. The techniques that have been developed up until now, particularly in genetics, are opening up a wide range of new lines of research and promising applications. At the same time, these advances are uncovering new challenges for the field. Researcher Pere Puigdomènech spoke to local high school students in La Seu d'Urgell, in Spain’s Catalonia region, about the future of biotechnology, its opportunities, satisfactions, difficulties and new potential goals that involve not only researchers but also society at large.

In addition to Al Gore and climate change, contemporary society faces other inconvenient truths, such as those arising from certain uses of genetic engineering. Michael J. Sandel, Professor of Political Philosophy at Harvard University, gave a few examples of how prickly the ethical implication of science can be in a lecture at the Centre for Contemporary Culture (CCCB) in Barcelona on March 3. Sandel focused his presentation on explaining where, according to him, the moral foundations underlying the social rejection of designing children “a la carte” through genetic engineering techniques truly lie. The expert also moderated a public debate among participants that was highly charged due to the provocative nature of the subject.

The groups at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) headed by Ernest Giralt (Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology) and Miquel Pons (Structural and Computational Biology) are to develop research projects with Catalan biotech companies. The groups will work with Intelligent Pharma and Lead Molecular Design, respectively, to identify more efficient methods to obtain drugs. The IRB Barcelona groups have been awarded 200,000€ and 100,000€ respectively by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, through the programme “Transmisión de Conocimiento a la Empresa” (TRACE -Transmission of Knowledge to Enterprise). This programme seeks to promote interaction between agents working in the science and technology sectors; in this case basic research labs and companies are involved.